


2+1=3

by jackgyeoms



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Adoption, M/M, Parenthood, basically the process of adopting demora
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-12
Updated: 2016-08-12
Packaged: 2018-08-08 09:15:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7751893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jackgyeoms/pseuds/jackgyeoms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They’re together in bed when Ben whispers, “I want kids,” to the ceiling. It seems oh so simple just to reply with, “Okay.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	2+1=3

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd so all mistakes are my own.

 

The decision about children comes sometime after Hikaru’s return to Earth after his first venture on the Enterprise. Things are easier then – Hikaru on shore leave and Ben yet to branch out to accept cases across galaxies, and once missions begin again they are brief, a few days to a week at most. Things are fairly settled, and they’re together in bed when Ben whispers, “I want kids,” to the ceiling.

It seems oh so simple just to reply with, “Okay.”

“Really?” Ben questions, tilts his head to face his partner, eyebrows slightly angled. They’ve never spoken about this, not with any seriousness. (“That’s it, you can’t name our children.” “What? He looks like an Arnold.” “No planet looks like an Arnold.”)

Hikaru angles to watch him. “Yeah.” He reaches out across the rumbled sheets for Ben’s hand, intertwines their fingers and holds on. Ben squeezes back, and moves from his back to his side to get closer. Hikaru strokes his thumb over Ben’s knuckles. “Yeah. Really.”

And, Hikaru thinks, that where the craziness begins. There are so many options – adoptions and surrogacy and artificial incubators; charity run homes and companies with booklets of “viable egg candidates”. Brochures become nighttime reading.

He brings three different booklets about adoption agencies on his next off planet mission. He’d finished one the night before, and starts another during the shuttle trip to the Enterprise, and if he is being honest, he isn’t entirely sure he could tell you which was which.

The holo-files are put into the compartment under his desk, and Chekov catches sight of them.  “Adoption?” he looks startled by it, and then grins, “You and Ben are going to adopt?”

Hikaru shrugs, one-sided. “Maybe? We’re not sure yet. We’re looking at all avenues – Ben seems to like the idea of using a service specifically for same sex couples to have children of their own, whereas I kind of like the idea of adopting.”

“No surrogate?”

Hikaru shakes his head. “Seems unfair to ask someone to carry our child and give them up.”

“Child?” Kirk’s voice is perky behind him, and when he looks over his shoulder their Captain is leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees and looking excited. “You’re going to have a kid?”

“That’s the plan,” Hikaru nods.

“Dips on godfather,” he declares, and whilst Hikaru smiles he doesn’t have the time to point out that’s really something he needs to talk to Ben about before Kirk is asking Scotty about the state of the warp core, and it is time to leave the atmosphere.

-

In the end, they choose adoption. There are figures about how many children were left orphaned after Nero, and the massacre of Starfleet Officers, and there’s something that sits in Hikaru’s gut about the fact that he could have been in those numbers, just as much as those officers didn’t have to be. Ben tells him that he could have been amongst the widowed that they see every time they walk past that memorial on the end of campus.

His firm dealt with the cases of the deceased, of two families battling for the custody of one child, of parents lost in grief and unable to find a way out. Ben sat with too many on his desk for weeks. He’s reminded of them when he looks at the bright faces on the care home brochures.

There’s countless forms to fill out and meetings to have. They spoke to LouBeck, a charitable organisation founded after the attacks specifically to help the families of those left behind, which included the funding for room and board and care for those left without parents.

Gubat is very hopeful and positive of their chances. “We have many children that are looking for good permanent homes, and I can almost guarantee there will be one to fit into your household.”

They’re told only that someone will “be in touch”, and although they vibrated with excitement at just how close they were, there was also the feeling of uselessness that comes with waiting. Positivity and negativity war in Hikaru’s mind daily, and he confesses to Scotty all this waiting might be driving him into insanity.

“I just- I just wish they’d tell us, you know?” Hikaru mutters into his lunch.  
“What you gotta do is give yourself a distraction. A good flight will do the trick.” Scotty assures him, and Hikaru suspects it’s his doing when the Enterprise is given the assignment of representing Starfleet during a trade agreement between Angel I and Minshara.

When he returns, Ben is grinning so wide it looks like it hurts. The relaxation that Hikaru once felt is jumped with nerves. “What happened?” he asks.

“Gubat called this morning,” Ben relays, “They have a child for us.”

-

LouBeck send over a file, but Hikaru and Ben don’t get a chance to read it before their friends descend upon their home with drink and food to celebrate. Leonard makes blueberry pie for the occasion and brings good Georgian whiskey so he doesn’t have to drink that “swill this state has to offer”. (He’s quiet through a lot of the celebrating, but gives good advice whenever the opportunity arises. Hikaru remembers that he has a daughter, a little girl who is aging somewhere far from where he can see her, and he wonders how much that must ache.)

“To my goddaughter,” Kirk toasts, and Scotty mutters, “Poor lass,” under his breath. It starts a fight, of course, and there’s something surreal about watching them speak about his daughter – his daughter, soon enough.

Hikaru takes a deep drink, and calms gradually when Ben rubs circles into the small of his back. It’s easy to sink into his arms and imagine their child amongst this familial warmth. She’ll be well looked after, he thinks, not just by him and Ben, but by everyone in this room. He thinks of all the times he wondered whether he is even capable of being a father and knows that they won’t let him fail. It’s a comforting thought.

-

She came to Ryichan Children’s Home at four months and without a name. She’s eighteen months now, and they call her Demora. “She’s a sweet girl,” Willow, her social worker, tells them, all bright smiles and encouraging looks. “Very bright, very easy to get along with.”

“Do you think she’ll like us?” Hikaru asks, and if he’s clinging to Ben’s hand just a little bit tighter, it isn’t commented upon.

“She’ll love you,” Willow assures, and finally pulls them to a stop. The sign on the door says ‘Playroom 3’ and Hikaru is once again hit with the awareness of just how much of an affect this meeting would have on his life, on their life.  
Behind this door could be their daughter. He shudders through an exhale.

Willow notices. “Do you need a moment?”

“Maybe,” Ben starts, but Hikaru shakes his head, “No, I’m fine. I just – I want to meet her.”

She’s playing with an Orion carer when they entered, her back to the door. The carer greets them with a smile, but the girl doesn’t move, absorbed in the starship toy that she is pushing along the carpeted floor in front of her.

“You must be the Sulus,” The carer says, and greets them with a smile. “I’m Rey.” She unfolds herself from the floor, and approaches them with her hand held out in front of her.

“Ben, and Hikaru,” Ben supplies for them, and takes the offered limb. Hikaru takes it afterwards, although absentmindedly, because he cannot bring himself to look away from the child before him. He isn’t be subtle about it, and Ben elbows him in the side to draw his attention back.

He snaps to attention and pinks under the amused stare of Rey. “Sorry,” he says.

“It’s okay. I know I’m not who you’re here to see,” Rey brushes it aside, and adds a little quieter, “You should go and say hello. Demora’s been very excited to meet you.”

It’s Ben that has the nerve to approach her first, takes small steps on floorboards that creak a little under his weight, until he can lower himself onto the ground. Hikaru finds himself frozen to the spot, heart beating too loudly in his chest when he watches Ben smile at her.

“Hello, my name’s Ben,” he says, “It’s nice to meet you Demora.”

He holds out his hand to her, and she moves her toy from her left hand to her right to shake it. “Hi.”

Ben’s eyes flicker over her shoulder and back, “That man over there. That’s my husband. His name is Hikaru. He’s a bit shy though.”

“‘kay,” Demora speaks, and then after a moment, she pushes herself up onto her two legs and wobbles a U-turn to face Hikaru. She’s unsteady but confident on her feet, and yet Hikaru has all this terrifying images of her falling, of scrapped hands and cuts and bruises, of broken bones and bleeding, and –  
Demora comes to a stop in front of him, and presents her starship towards him. “Play?” she asks.

Hikaru thinks that’s the moment he fell in love with her.

He releases a breath that he doesn’t know he is holding, and feels lightheaded at the sudden rush of oxygen upon inhaling. His hands shake when he reaches for the toy, “Okay.”

She smiles at him, wide with only her two front teeth in place, and he falls deeper.

He holds her hand as delicately as he can because something so precious can be broken, and allows himself to be lead back to Ben and the toys arranged in front of him. She lets go and sits down first, and then looks up at him until he does the same. He glances at Ben and gets a smile and Hikaru knows that’s it. No other decision, no further looking. The three of them – this is their family.

He’s still holding onto the starship, and Demora picks a hover car to press into Ben’s hands before claiming a fighter jet for herself.

“Okay,” Hikaru says, “Let’s make these babies fly.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> [hit me up on tumblr!](http://gladers.co.vu)


End file.
